


Take Control of Who You Are

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Backstory, Careers Have Issues (Hunger Games), F/M, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Not graphic but disturbing themes, Other, Pre-Relationship, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex Trafficking, because Capitol people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: All the Capitol does is take.Finnick learns what it feels like to take something back.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Mags & Finnick Odair
Series: Tales of District Four [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Kudos: 56





	Take Control of Who You Are

Finnick volunteers when he’s fourteen.

His father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew. _“Not my kids,”_ he’d say shortly whenever the recruiters would come around (he had a lot of choice names that he would call them, behind closed-doors: _vultures, leeches, sharks,_ _predators)._

 _“We don’t need their money,”_ He would insist, his spine proud and straight despite all the times he’d nearly broken his back from the labor of hauling nets. His hands would be burned raw from the rope and Finnick’s mother would rub soothing ointment on them when he came home after one, two, three weeks at sea. Working on a Capitol trawler was brutal and unforgiving, but it was much easier to find work on one of those ships than on a smaller District Four boat (unless of course you were underage and willing to spear fish for even a handful of coins). 

_“We’ll have our own boat.”_ His father would always say, gathering his children around him while his wife rolled her eyes in the background, mouthing his speech word for word along with him. _“Someday, we’ll have our own boat and we’ll all work on it together, and it’ll just be us five and the sea. Someday, someday.”_

Of course, someday never comes.

Cedros Odair was an excellent swimmer, but that hadn’t mattered when he was pulled overboard by equipment, dragged down and tangled in weighted nets meant for fish. It took them five minutes too long to get to him. 

Their household income is halved. The next time the recruiters come around, they let them in. 

Lotan is too old to start training. Finnick is the perfect age. 

Everyone at the Complex is hungry. Driven to succeed. You’re either willing to beat down the other children for a chance at earning prizes (food, essentials, sometimes even money), or you are quickly weeded out of the program.

It’s strange, because his father always spoke about it like it was something abhorrent, something _shameful,_ but the first time Finnick brings home a full meal for his family to share, he feels a flicker of pride.

 _I did that,_ he thinks, watching little Adelaide gleefully tearing into a loaf of bread. 

“Have you been to Victor’s Isle? The Victors all live in mansions, and they all have their own boats. _Each.”_ Haf, Finnick’s best friend and closest competition, tells him gleefully, his eyes gleaming with want. “Everyone says they have more money than they know what to do with - more money than they could ever spend! Can you imagine that? More money than you could ever spend?”

Finnick looks across the cove, toward the bright lights of Victor’s Isle, and smiles wistfully.

“Yeah. I can imagine that.”

He thinks his mother expects him to be weeded out - he’s too cavalier, too playful to be trained into a vicious killer, she must expect. She never asks it of him, never tells him that she wants him to fail out on purpose before it’s too late. The longer he waits, the less likely he’ll be able to get away with it, the worse the consequences for being caught will be.

By the time Finnick is twelve, he knows he’s going to be picked.

Haf knows it too. “Tell you what,” He tells Finnick with a grin, after he’s just lost yet another sparring session. “Convince them to let you volunteer at seventeen - hell, they’d probably let you do sixteen. Then I’ll do the year after you, and we can have back-to-back victories. We’ll get houses next to each other on Victor’s Isle.”

“The Trainers won’t let me volunteer at sixteen,” Finnick snorts. 

Haf’s not joking anymore. “Yes, Finnick. They will.” 

The winter that he turns fourteen, District Four gets hit by a horrible sickness.

 _“Polluted fish,”_ everyone whispers. _“From one of the factories up in District Three. They’ve been dumping into the river that feeds into the cove.”_

It doesn’t even matter where it comes from, just that it tears through everyone. Young, old, wealthy, poor. 

But especially the poor. 

Adelaide is only seven when she draws her last shaking breath.

His mother fights through it, barely, but the pneumonia leaves her lungs badly damaged. It's unlikely she'll make it through another winter. She needs medication, _expensive_ medication. The type that can only be bought with Capitol money.

Or Victor money.

(Haf is right. They would've let him volunteer at sixteen.

It takes almost nothing to convince them he's ready at fourteen.)

  
  


* * *

  
  


Finnick is in the arena for nine days.

It feels like nine hundred.

  
  


* * *

  
  


For the first year, things aren’t good, but they’re not bad either.

They’re _strange_. Finnick doesn’t go back to training, or school, he and his family move into the isolated Victor’s Isle, and everyone stares at him with something that might be awe.

(Or fear. Or both. He can’t tell anymore.)

His mother gets her Capitol medication and it’s bittersweet how quickly her lungs return to normal. Finnick wonders how many people could have been saved if the Capitol simply handed District Four the medicine they needed when the sickness struck - if Adelaide could have been saved. 

Most days he tries to push those thoughts out of his head. Other days, the bad ones, when it rains and he’s back in his arena, and he can feel Trisha’s blood coating his face, Finnick thinks about the Capitol and everything he knows they have now, and he lets himself hate them because that’s easier than sitting with his head tucked into his knees, hating himself.

The Victory Tour comes along and some of it’s awful. Truly awful, when he has to look in the eyes of the family of Tributes he either killed or let be killed. He sees the desperation in the gaunt hunger of their faces, the misery that makes him feel fat and overstuffed by comparison. His entire life, Finnick has heard how lucky they are to live in District Four. He doesn’t know what that means until he sees the dilapidated pit that is District Twelve. 

Some of it isn’t awful - some if it is almost good. Specifically, getting to meet the other Victors. These days, it’s like there’s a thin sheet of glass between him and most of the people he interacts with in District Four. Finnick feels like he’s wearing the skin of the boy he was _before_ whenever he’s with his friends, play-acting with people who don’t understand him anymore.

There’s no need to pretend with the other Victors. Some of them, mostly those whose Tributes Finnick killed, are a bit wary with him, but most are friendly and talk frankly about things with him that would’ve shocked the people back home.

“You’re a good kid.” Seeder, a kind woman from District Eleven, tells him as she pulls him into a hug. “Don’t let them take that from you.”

Finnick wants to laugh - _if killing seven other kids doesn’t make me a bad kid, then what the hell would? -_ but her eyes are serious and she seems sincere so he just nods and gives her a genuine smile.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone take anything from me.”

President Snow shakes his hand and gives him a firm shoulder squeeze when he gets to the Capitol. 

“That was quite the victory, Finnick. I can’t remember the last time the Capitol has been so enamored.”

Finnick’s flushed with the champagne _(“One,” Mags had insisted. “You can have one and that’s it.” but of course people have been sneaking him drinks all night)_ and the realization that this is the _President_ and he’s calling Finnick by his _name._ “It’s all due to the Capitol’s generosity. Their love is what got me home.”

“A well-practiced answer,” President Snow seems amused by his response. “But I’m pleased to hear that you know where your loyalty belongs. That you understand who saved you.”

Finnick remembers days of misery and terror in the arena. The feeling of his trident entering Trisha’s abdomen. The fever that burned through his baby sister and left her convulsing and choking on her own tongue. 

He feels like he’s on the verge of grasping something important, but he can’t quite close his fingers around it.

“Of course I do.” Finnick smiles at the president. “I love the Capitol. I owe it everything.”

* * *

  
  


(They take everything.)

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


The first time he’s forced into sex, Finnick doesn’t really know what’s happening.

He knows what’s happening _in the moment._ But he doesn’t know what it means. Cannot comprehend the implications. His mind shuts down the same way it did in the arena, unable to think past anything except _how do I survive this?_

Nothing exists for him except the red and gold walls of the room he’s trapped in, the feeling of a strange man’s hands on his body, the breath against the back of his neck, and the pain. 

It feels like an attack, and it goes against everything he’s been trained to _not fight back._ But the interviews of his family and friends play on a loop in the back of his mind and he twists his hands into the pillowcase, trying not to hyperventilate on his sobs. 

Even when President Snow comes to see him after, Finnick doesn’t fully understand it. He’s drifting somewhere far away and there’s only one thought in his head now, repeating over and over again:

_I want to go home._

Someone eventually collects him, and he gets cleaned up, and there’s some hushed murmurs as blurry figures (to this day, he’s not sure if it was his prep team or strangers) fuss over him, and by the time they drop him off in his bed at the District Four floor, he’s so miserable and exhausted that he sleeps for a day straight.

When he finally comes to, Mags is shattered.

“Mijo,” She pushes his hair back from his forehead and Finnick leans into it, craving the feel of her gentle hands. He wonders if this is what that soothing ointment had felt like to his father. “Tell me what happened. Who hurt you?”

He tells her. Finnick’s not even sure how, but he tells her. He tells her everything that happened from the moment that President Snow handed him off to the Head Gamemaker like the catch of the day.

Mags covers her mouth with a shaking hand. He expects her horror.

What he does not expect is what she says next:

“I thought he’d at least _wait.”_

Finnick recoils from her. He doesn’t know what that means, but it sounds as if - as if she’d _expected_ this? As if she knew that the Gamemaker would do this to him, would want this from him. How could she have possibly known, when he’d been so blindsided?

“I’m so sorry.” She tells him, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen her _cry._ “Finnick, I’m so sorry. They did this with Meri and I knew it could happen to you, but I thought I had time to try and stop it. I didn’t think - I can’t believe he did this. I didn’t think they’d start doing this to you. Not this soon. Not this young.”

His head is swimming and none of this is making sense, but there’s one thing that sticks out. 

_Start._

“No. _No._ I can’t do that again,” Finnick says hoarsely, and everything feels cold. He won’t go back into that room again. He survived, he got out, and he doesn’t have to go back in again. Those are the rules. That’s how the Game works. “I’m not doing that again.”

The exhale Mags releases is shaking. “You said they threatened your family?”

His eyes dart around, not meeting her eyes. “Yeah.”

Mags puts the pieces together that he doesn’t want to. “That wasn’t a one-time threat, Finnick. They’re going to ask you to do this again.”

 _All we are requesting is your_ continued _cooperation._

 _You will be ready to_ continue _your duties with not just agreeableness, but enthusiasm._

The tiny thread of sanity that he’d held onto in that room starts to unravel. _“Why?”_

His mentor looks a thousand years old when she meets his eyes and answers: 

“Because this is what they do, baby. They take. 

All they do is take.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Not all of them are like Crassus. Most of them aren’t, actually - they’re greedy and selfish and terrible, but most don’t seem to _want_ to hurt him. 

Physically, anyway.

Sometimes they do anyway, even if they don’t mean to. They won’t notice, or if they do they’ll apologize carelessly, like they _both_ got carried away. Almost all of them are so insistent on playing pretend, acting as if they think he’s happy with this arrangement, giving him money and jewels, to the point where sometimes Finnick forgets and starts to wonder if _maybe they don’t know?_

Then he reminds himself of what it was like when he started, how shaking and nervous he was, how painfully obvious it was that he didn’t want to be there, and how’d they’d act just the same even then. Keeping up the facade, their voices fake and chirping, petting his hair and trying to cajole him with gifts. 

(No, they know. They all know, they just want him to play along with it so they’re not made to feel guilty.)

Sometimes, it’s not even the sex that’s the worst part.

Finnick thinks that maybe if it were just sex, it wouldn’t be quite so unbearable. If it were just quick fucks with little to no touching (and no _talking),_ then maybe it wouldn’t fuck with his head so much. 

The little things are what set him off the most. A casual possessive hand on his waist, or on the nape of his neck, or even just on his arm when they’re out in public. Being tugged along or called over as if he’s some kind of pet on a leash. The way he’s expected to actually _flirt_ with them, to charm them like he does his tribute’s sponsors (not that there isn’t _overlap_ , which just complicates shit further), to make them feel special and desired and wanted.

He tries to talk to Meri about it once, but ceases speaking when he sees the black look in her eyes.

“That didn’t happen to me.” She says faintly, sounding very far away. 

“But Mags said-”

 _“It didn’t happen to me.”_ Meri’s quiet for a long time, before adding guiltily. “I’m sorry honey. You’ve just got to do whatever you can to get through it, then it can never have happened to you too.”

The problem is, Finnick’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to do that. If it were just the sex, then maybe. _Maybe._ But it’s not - it feels like they’re taking all of him, possessing him, swallowing him whole. 

What will be left of him when they finally release him?

 _If_ they release him?

A few days after his conversation with Meri, Finnick’s in bed with Opal Clearview and she’s purring like a kitten and then she calls him _my sweet little pet._ And it doesn’t matter that all she’s done is kiss him and make him touch her (or did he do that without being told? It’s becoming difficult to keep track), suddenly she’s no different than the woman the other night who made him get her off while they watched the recap of his tribute get torn apart by salamander mutts, or the man who _had_ wanted to hurt him the week before, who had wrapped his fingers around Finnick’s throat and -

And suddenly Finnick’s fingers are around _Opal’s_ throat and it feels _so fucking good._

Like taking back a bit of something that’s been stolen from him.

It’s a brief illusion, and as soon as Opal’s eyes widen from the comprehension of what he’s doing, Finnick throws himself back, apologies and pleas already spilling over his lips. 

(It’s too late, of course.)

  
  


* * *

Haf volunteers when they're eighteen. Mags won’t let Finnick mentor him. Finnick still talks up sponsors, going just short of trading _himself_ to bring Haf home.

Haf's killed. Of course.

They haven’t been friends for years, the distance that began forming between them when Finnick left training and won a huge house on Victor’s Isle solidified by Haf’s jealousy of Finnick’s popularity in the Capitol and Finnick’s sudden caginess on the topic.

When he’s alone in his room that night, Finnick lets himself cry.

He goes home and Lotan barely speaks to him. This is the usual, has been for the last year. Finnick knows that Lotan looks at him and sees a stranger now. After these Games, it’s somehow even worse, and a few weeks pass before Lotan reveals why.

“Can’t believe you didn’t fucking help him.” Lotan says as he abruptly gets up from the dinner table and starts washing his bowl. Dinner is the only time they see each other, a habit neither of them seem able to break from when their mother was still alive and trying to bridge the gap between them. 

Finnick’s head snaps up from where he was picking apart his loaf of bread. “What?”

“Haf. ‘Time was, two of you were joined at the hip and people used to think _he_ was your brother. He got stabbed and bled out, and where were you?”

His heart picks up, the way that it would in the arena when he could hear someone in the distance and he’d crouch down, hiding in the shadows as he’d ready his net and prepare to strike. “Where was _I?_ What, you wanted me to join him in the arena or something?”

“You should’ve been _mentoring,_ not off at some Capitol party!”

Right. There’d been a camera crew that interviewed him on the spot after Finnick watched Haf twitch and bleed on the big screen at Immelda Raspin’s viewing party. Of course Lotan would see that and think Finnick was off having the time of his life while his former best friend cried out for his mother as he slowly died.

Finnick has no idea what he is or isn’t allowed to tell his family, so he’s always opted for the safer option of _nothing._ And maybe that’s in part cowardice - he’d rather his brother think that he’s some out of control partying asshole instead of admitting the truth. 

Lotan would never let anyone use him the way that Finnick has. He has their father's pride.

“It doesn’t matter _where_ I was when he died.” Finnick says flatly. “There was nothing I could’ve done to save him.”

Lotan shakes his head.

“Dad would be so disappointed in you. They _both_ would be.”

For a split second, Finnick has the impulse to throw his butter knife at Lotan. 

It wouldn’t kill him, probably wouldn’t even hurt him, but it _would_ scare the hell out of him. Remind Lotan who he is, the things he’s done.

Instead, he stands up and leaves the room without a word. As much as he hates being around Lotan and his (normally) silent accusations, the thought of letting the Capitol take the last family he has left is too much.

They've already taken everything else.

* * *

  
  


Annie Cresta breaks.

Finnick’s jealous.

It’s awful, and mostly he’s worried and upset about what’s happening to her, but there’s a small part of him that is jealous as he watches Annie absolutely lose her shit in front of the entire country. 

_Finn,_ his mother’s voice chides him gently. _That’s not right. That girl is suffering._

He can’t help it. He envies her. No one is telling her what to say, how to act, what to feel. 

_Is this what freedom looks like?_

But no. Annie Cresta is not free, her cage just looks different than his. Hers is made of hundreds of cameras, dialing in and focusing on her, replaying, analyzing her mental crisis from every possible angle. 

_“Hysterical,”_ one commentator says.

 _“Mad,”_ corrects the other one. _“She’s gone completely nuts. There’s nothing left in there.”_

They’re wrong. Finnick knows they’re wrong. After everything she’s just seen... he thinks her reaction might just be the sanest thing he’s ever seen in the Games. 

Annie cries and clutches her head. She rocks back and forth, like she can make everything go away.

“I want to go _home,”_ she wails.

 _Back to the sea,_ Finnick thinks.

_(Caesar Flickerman is a narcissist, which really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone._

_It’s still a disappointment when he buys Finnick. Caesar’s always been nice to him - and he’s always seemed to genuinely care about helping the tributes present their best qualities to the audience - and it hurts a hundred times more when it’s someone he_ knows. 

_But he does buy Finnick this year - or it's a favor from Snow, Finnick never knows which it is unless his clients brag about it - which means that he has to stick around after the Interviews and... well, it’s not totally a surprise that Caesar enjoys watching himself on TV._

_It takes_ way _too long because first Caesar wants to get high and speculate about everyone’s odds (Finnick does at least learn some interesting information about a secret new earthquake function that the Gamemakers are developing) and reminisce about Finnick’s ‘journey to success’ with him, so by the time Finnick stumbles back to the apartment he’s certain he’s missed the opportunity to give his tribute any final words of advice._

_Except Annie Cresta is waiting up for him._

_It seems that she took his words to heart when he told her that she couldn’t trust anyone except for him._

_They sit next to each for a long while, her face hidden in her knees. Finnick’s so sorry that she’s here - she never signed up for this, never beat other children down for scraps to bring home to her family, never volunteered. He can’t even begin to imagine how she’s feeling._

_Except as he glances at her, the tightness of her fingers digging into her calves, her body screaming that she wants desperately to just be_ somewhere else, _Finnick feels a strange sense of kinship with this girl he doesn’t really know._

_And oddly, he thinks he knows what she needs._

_He reaches for the remote, presses a few buttons, and then the windows around them transform into a projected video of the ocean._

_Annie’s head raises and her face is awash in the blue glow of the waves and the clear sky._

_(For just the tiniest of moments, it occurs to him that she’s pretty.)_

_“It’s not quite as good as the real thing but…”_

_“Thank you.” Her voice is faint, but sincere. “Children of Four always return to the sea.”_

_Finnick feels a real smile touch on his own lips, as he recognizes the saying. Another piece of home here in this strange place._

_“Like sea turtles.”)_

The gift is expensive and impractical and Finnick expects Mags to berate him for it. But she understands.

“It’ll remind her of home.” She says. “Give her some peace, before…”

_Before…_

The unspoken lingers in the air. It’s so obvious to everyone. Annie Cresta is dead. She’s been swallowed by the Games, just another sacrifice to the Capitol. Another tribute, another victim. A tragic reminder of the cost of rebellion.

Finnick watches the screen as Annie receives his gift. Something shifts back into place in her eyes (nobody else comments on it - does anyone even notice?) and she’s rising to her feet, the barest hint of that focus that used to keep her gaze sharp. 

“No.” Finnick replies, even though Mags made her comment too long ago for his response to make any sense. “No, there's still a chance.”

He bolts out of the room before Mags can stop him.

* * *

Finnick doesn’t save Annie. Not really.

All he does is give her a chance. It’s her choice to take it.

When the flood rushes in, he thinks for a moment that she’s not going to. That she’s going to close her eyes and let _it_ take _her._

Annie swims. 

Later, the commentators will remark how it was instinct that let her swim. But Finnick sees something different. He watches the obvious ache of her muscles as she forces them to keep going, the calculated effort of conserving her energy once she starts to shiver. 

She’s fighting. Not against the other Tributes, not anymore.

No, this is a fight against nature. Against forces far more powerful than she, than him. 

~~Against the Capitol.~~

She’s completely out of it, but she’s still fighting when the claw of the hovercraft reaches down to extract her from the arena.

Finnick watches without breathing.

* * *

_Is this what it feels like to take something back?_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> There's a second part to this that I'm working on that fits thematically, but it is TBD whether it will just be posted to the general series, or if I'll make it a second chapter of this specific fic. It depends on how well it fits when I finish it. 
> 
> (In case it's confusing - it did happen to Meri. She copes with it by not talking about it and refusing to acknowledge it.)


End file.
